


Ashes

by Morpheus626



Series: Lee's Rock/Queentober 2020 [16]
Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: FTM Reader, M/M, trans reader - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:34:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27055759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: Assigned band member for this day: BrianSynopsis: Brian/ Trans M Reader. Set just before the beginning of the 1976 A Night At The Opera USA tour. Your father has recently passed, and it’s a hell of a time, as to be expected. But Brian is there to help you through it, at least.TW for death of a parent, though it isn’t described in detail. Also casual transphobia, and descriptions of reader having a shitty relationship with their father.
Relationships: brian may/reader
Series: Lee's Rock/Queentober 2020 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950265
Kudos: 6





	Ashes

“Thank you for coming with,” you say softly. 

The lights in the crematorium buzz, and you and Brian shift uncomfortably under their too-bright, clinical glow. 

But then, since your father had first taken ill, it had been uncomfortable. Awkward. 

He approved of Brian, in a general sense. But he had never liked Brian as a person. 

For that matter, your father hadn’t liked you much either. He loved you as parental obligation, but it was not a true love, and he didn’t show it often. When he did, it came in the form of trying to buy your love, offering you expensive things you didn’t want or to pay your rent for a month or two out of nowhere. But always with the catch that you would then do whatever he asked of you, after the money was given. 

You had never taken it. You had a job, and your own paycheck, and love to be found elsewhere with other people. So you had let your father keep all his money, and all the love that supposedly would have come with it on the condition of your obedience. 

The last day you’d visited him in hospice, he’d made all of that very clear, in a long, meandering, often hurtful lecture. 

“As a daughter...you were disappointing, but fine enough, for a girl,” he had coughed. “But as a son...” 

He had rolled his eyes, and asked the nurse checking his IV what she thought it would take for you to get the hint and finally leave him to die in peace. 

That was when you had left. No good-bye, even as the nurse had called after you, letting you know he wasn’t likely to last the night. 

You hadn’t cared then, and you didn’t care now as the crematorium employee handed over the medium-sized white box that held the urn which contained your father’s ashes. 

If he had cared at all, after you left, there was no way to know. And what did it matter? Out of all his children, you were the only one to show up when he first got sick. You brought him to England on your dime so he could receive care and not drown his family (wife and family number four) in medical debt. You offered to fly out your half-siblings, all of them, from wives 2-4, even offering your mum the chance to fly out if she desired, even if only to slap him once soundly. 

None of them had taken you up on it. Most of them hadn’t even replied, by phone or letter. But you had made up excuses for them all, when he got sad, asking where they were. 

You had done all that, and he hadn’t cared one whit. You weren’t the way he wanted you to be, so none of it had counted. 

“He didn’t have any requests, or anything in his will about it?” Brian asks, gesturing to the box as you walk together back to his car. 

You shake your head. “I wish he had. I don’t know what the fuck to do with them.” 

“Rude of him,” Brian says as he helps you into the car, careful not to jostle the box. “Just one last fuck you, it seems like...” 

“It really does,” you sigh, opening the box as you wait for Brian to get into the driver’s seat. The urn is bronze, and a little ugly, if you’re honest. But your father had picked it out himself, and he always did get most of what he wanted, didn’t he? No matter the end result or consequences. 

“Sorry,” Brian mutters as he slips into the seat, quickly starting the car and getting it pulled out into the mid-day London traffic. “Shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.” 

“If he didn’t want anyone speaking ill of him when he was dead, then he shouldn’t have been a fucking shithead in life,” you found yourself sobbing suddenly, the tears an unexpected and unwelcome surprise as they fell. 

“It’s okay,” Brian says gently. 

“It isn’t!” you protest, wiping harshly at the tears. “I want to throw this damned thing out the window!” 

Brian pulls into the nearest open spot on the side of the street. “Y/N-” 

“I hate this,” you whimper. “I said years ago: no more tears over him, or because of him. Not even one more! And yet here I am...” 

Brian undoes his seatbelt and leans close to hug you. “You can’t be upset with yourself for this. Anyone would cry; he may have been terrible and your relationship with him might have been shit, but-” 

You could see him choosing his words carefully. 

“You still knew him. For better or worse, he was in your life, and that means something. Not all good, not all bad, but a mix. And that means having a reaction to this moment, to him being gone.” 

“I don’t want him in our house,” you say as you close the box’s lid. 

“Okay,” Brian nods. “Is there anywhere in particular you want to put him? I mean, his ashes, I should say.” 

“No,” you sigh shakily. “I just want him away from us.” 

Brian’s wearing the look that comes up whenever he’s being clever, but feels unsure about it. “I might have an idea. You still want to come out on a few tour dates with us, yeah?”

“If you guys will have me,” you reply. “And so long as I won’t be in the way.” 

“Never,” Brian smiles, and kisses your forehead. “So then, if you aren’t sure of just one place for him, maybe you could bring him with, and...” 

After a moment, it clicks. “That’s brilliant. What would I do without that brain of yours?” 

“Be perfectly fine, because there are a great many days where you’re much more clever than I am,” Brian chuckles. “And more put together, too.” 

“That’s debatable,” you manage a smile. 

He shakes his head, then looks down. “Keys?” 

“Still in the ignition, love.” 

He blushes, utterly adorable, and nods. “Right. Where they would be, of course. Sorry; I swear I’m fit to drive.” 

For now, the urn has to come into the house with you, though you let Brian put it up on a high shelf in the hall closet. It’s difficult to do, but Brian makes it so much easier. 

And a few weeks later, as the tour begins, you lighten as the urn does. 

Part of him in Boston. A bit left in New York. Some in Chicago. And finally, the rest of him in San Diego. 

You bury the ashes deep in the dirt, under the watchful eye of the public park warden who has given you permission to spread the ashes there. 

She leaves as soon as you’re done, leaving you and Brian alone, staring at the miniscule mound of disturbed dirt. 

He wraps an arm around you. “Feeling better?” 

You nod. “A little. At least he’s truly gone now. I wonder what he’d think of all this anyway, us doing this with his remains. If he’d find it neat, or hate it utterly.” 

“That’s the beauty of this,” Brian says. “He’s gone. He can’t weigh you down with his thoughts or feelings or insults or complaints anymore. All that ugly shit he used to say to you is as dead as he is.” 

“It is,” you sigh happily.

“And you’re here, and alive, and beautiful,” Brian continues. “What say we take that urn back to the hotel and leave it there, then have a walk round here before I have to get to the venue?” 

You nod and follow him out of the park, but stop at the sight of an open dumpster near the park entrance. 

He shakes his head as you toss the urn into it. “I thought you might, as soon as I saw it.” 

“He wouldn’t care anyway,” you say, as you pull him back into the park. “And even if he did, who cares? He isn’t here to yell at me about it, and I wouldn’t care for what he had to say regardless.” 

You know better than to kiss right there, the looks you’ll get. But Brian pulls you down a path with only one woman on it, and as soon as she passes, he kisses you deeply, but sweetly. 

“My father had no idea of how good you are,” you can’t help but whisper as you continue down the path with him. “But I do. And I’m so glad I have you.” 

“He had no idea how good you are either,” Brian replies. “No idea who he missed out on getting to know, to care for. I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to be someone who has gotten to do what he didn’t, albeit in a different way.” 

For the rest of the quiet path, before you reach other people again, you take his hand. 

You won’t say now, because who knows exactly what the future might be. But you know that when you go, you hope Brian will keep your ashes at home. On a mantel, or a side table. Somewhere near him, whenever he’s home. 


End file.
